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Tuesday, September 24, 2013

The Legacy of King Cobra

The Legacy of
King Cobra

It was the cool of the evening in Mfuwe,
and all the animals were gathered around the watering hole for their usual
discussion of the affairs of state. ‘I wonder,’ said the Wise Elephant, ‘why we
have never appointed a king?’

‘You only wonder that,’ growled Mighty
Lion, ‘because you would like to be king yourself.’

The Elegant Giraffe looked down
serenely upon this little discussion. ‘We already have the Brutal Buffaloes for
war, Educated Elephants as our judges and the Honorable Hippopotamuses to make
our laws. So what would we do with a king?’

‘We have nobody to represent us,’ said
the Wise Elephant. ‘When important visitors arrive from abroad there is nobody
to greet them and introduce them to our hiccupping hippos and lovable lions, or
to show them the biggest baobab tree in the world. Other countries have kings,
why can’t we?’

‘The problem with having a king,’ said
Lion, ‘is that he’ll soon become pompous. Instead of just showing visitors
around, and taking the lead in singing the Song of Mfuwe, he’ll think he’s in
charge of everything and start bossing us around.’

‘Quite right,’ said the Bold Baboon. ‘Look
at Wise Elephant here, he’s already stronger than everybody else, and thinks he
knows everything. Just think what a nuisance he might become if we made him
king!’

After that remark, everybody sat quiet,
not wanting to annoy Wise Elephant. Finally Klever Kalulu perked up. ‘What we
need,’ he said ‘is a democratic king. Not some big fellow with his own ideas.
Just an ordinary little fellow with no ideas. Then we can fill his head with
our ideas. Not proud of himself but proud of Mfuwe. An empty little vessel into
which we can put the constitution, so that he can understand the job of being a
king. Starting from nothing, he can then fill himself with wisdom and grow to
be a good king.’

‘Are you proposing yourself?’ sneered
Mighty Lion.

‘Certainly not,’ kackled Klever
Kalulu. ‘I was thinking of Common Cobra. He’s a real commoner, an inhabitant of
the grass roots who knows all the animals of the forest. No education or ideas.
He should be our ideal candidate. Our sole candidate!’

And so it was that the Common Cobra
became King Cobra.

But things did not go well. The very
things that Mighty Lion had warned against soon came to pass. The king
recruited all the hyenas as his Police Force, now known as the Dreaded PF, which
began to terrorise all the other animals. Any animal that had once laughed at
King Cobra when he was just a Common Cobra were now declared his enemies, arrested
by the Dreaded PF and brought to court. The king fired Wise Elephant as the
Chief Judge, and replaced him with the ancient Cranky Crocodile, who did
whatever she was told, provided she was allowed to eat the enemies of the king.

And the animals soon found that it was
impossible for the animals to instruct King Cobra on the constitution. He built
himself a new palace called Snake House and never came out, never listened to
advice and never talked to the other animals - except to give instructions to
the Dreaded PF hyenas.

He made the baboons construct a huge
tower in the grounds of Snake House, and each morning he would climb to the
top, declaring that he was getting instructions from God and that he was
governing the country according to the Ten Commandments. And the animals
whispered one to another that he was supposed to be listening to the people and
following the constitution. But nobody dared to speak out for fear of the PF
hyenas and the ancient Cranky Crocodile that lurked around the courtroom.

Things got even worse when he ordered
the animals to collect all the fruit from the forest for export to Ching-Chang.
The animals also had to construct the roads needed to export the fruit to
Ching-Chang. The animals were now exhausted and near starvation. The king was
selling the fruit to build a gold statue of himself, ten metres tall, where the
animals could all be ordered to march up and down and salute the Great King
Cobra. ‘These great roads, and this great statue,’ declared the king, ‘will be
the enduring legacy of the Great King Cobra!’

By now the animals were in a state of
silent and sullen rebellion. But they could no longer meet around the watering
hole to discuss the constitutional crisis. The king had declared that any
meeting first needed permission from the Dreaded PF hyenas, which was much the
same thing as asking for a cuddle with the Cranky Crocodile.

Then one little elephant called Mumbo
Jumbo did a very brave thing for such a small fellow. He called a secret
meeting in the Dark Corner of the forest. And there it was that these
treacherous and treasonable animals came up with a plan to overthrow their
king. They agreed that on the Great Day of the Unveiling of the Statue of the Golden
King, the baboons would run up and tie a rope around the statue’s neck, and
then all the elephants would pull the statue down.

Which they did. And the strange thing
was that the statue came down very easily, and the hyenas all ran away. And
another strange thing was that the statue was hollow. Even the head was
completely empty. There was nothing inside the statue except some smoldering
ashes at the bottom. The Wise Elephant put his head inside the statue to have a
look. ‘These ashes,’ he said solemnly, ‘are all that remain of our
constitution.’

And from that day to this, in the land
of Mfuwe, everybody is afraid of snakes. That is the legacy of King Cobra.